The Dreaming Stars Read online

  Uzoma removed Sebastien’s diadem. “There is nothing more you can do here,” they said to Elena. “We will make sure he is comfortable.”

  Elena nodded. “Thanks, both of you, for trying. I know it isn’t easy. I just… I’m not ready to give up on him yet. Not if there’s a chance he can still be saved.”

  “We were on a ship together,” Uzoma said. “I will continue my efforts for as long as it seems feasible, though now that I have assisted in removing the implants, I have no particular expertise to offer. I am good with machines. Bodies are so much… squishier.”

  “Fortunately, squishy things are firmly within my area of expertise,” Stephen said. “I consider this a traumatic brain injury with personality-altering effects, and will treat it accordingly. I don’t give up on patients if there’s any hope left at all.”

  “Thank you. Both of you.” Elena swam through the air, out of the clinic, trying not to cry. This was so hard. What if Sebastien couldn’t be saved or changed? Even if they made him less psychotic, he might remain a homicidal megalomaniac who saw people as obstacles or pawns.

  She wiped at her eyes, and tiny globules of tears were dashed into the air, floating away. She needed to feel better. And when she needed to feel better, she needed Callie.

  The door to Callie’s quarters opened, and Elena floated in. Callie was in the middle of stuffing clothes into a bag, but she left it hanging in the air when she saw Elena’s beautiful, tear-stained face. “Oh, babe.” Callie opened her arms, and Elena drifted into them, the momentum of their joining making the pair of them spin gently in the center of the room. “No good?” Callie murmured. She’d occasionally fantasized about taking Sebastien for a long ride in the White Raven and dropping him off someplace in deep space, but Elena still hoped he could be saved, in defiance of all evidence, so Callie supported her.

  “It was bad. He woke up, but there was nothing human in him, as far as I could tell. I want to believe the old Sebastien is still in there somewhere, and Stephen says there’s hope, but it’s so hard to see him like that.”

  “I’m so sorry. Did he hurt you?” You couldn’t feel more than mild pain, really just tactile feedback, in the Hypnos, at least not without special dangerous third-party mods, but terrifying things were still terrifying, and racing hearts and rushing hormones and clenched muscles could leave you shaky and wrung out even after the diadem came off.

  “He would have, if we hadn’t ended the simulation. He killed Stephen and Uzoma’s avatars before he came after me. He was savage, but he was also smart.”

  Callie kissed the top of her head. Elena’s hair smelled like the same shampoo they all used, but it somehow blended with her natural scent and became intoxicating. “What’s the next step?” Callie wasn’t sure if she was hoping for more options, or for Elena to declare Sebastien a lost cause. The latter would be sad… but freeing. They could stick Sebastien’s comatose body on Lantern’s base and let her work on him for a while. At least then Sebastien wouldn’t be on her station, making her girlfriend cry every day, dreaming psychopath dreams.

  “Stephen says there are some promising experimental therapies he can try, but he’ll have to go to the Jovian Imperative to get the necessary supplies.”

  Hope springs eternal, with feathers on, Callie thought. “OK. I was thinking of organizing a field trip to Ganymede anyway.”

  Elena didn’t seem to hear that, lost in thoughts of her own. “What if we can’t save him, Callie? What if he’s just like this, forever? A monster?”

  Callie thought of the exploded fragments of Meditreme Station, her old home; of her friends who’d died there; of her failed marriage to Michael. “Some things can’t be saved. It’s sad, but there it is. You do your best, you try hard, and when nothing else can be done, you do your best to move on.” Elena stiffened up in her arms, and Callie stroked her hair and soothed: “Hey, I’m not saying we’re at that point yet. Even after Stephen and Uzoma have done all they can, Lantern is researching Axiom mind-control technology. There are references to breaking Axiom conditioning among the rebellious Liars, so there may be techniques we can adapt to work on human physiology. We’re a long way from the go/no-go decision.” Unfortunately. Callie had never known this supposedly nice and thoughtful and kind and charming version of Sebastien, only the megalomaniacal asshole he’d been on the Axiom station, and she had her doubts about the true nature of his allegedly good heart.

  “I know you don’t think much of him, and I don’t blame you.” Elena pulled back and smiled up at Callie, her expression open and warm, and Callie was warmed, too, by her proximity. “But it means the world to me that you’re willing to help anyway.”

  “I just love you is all.”

  Elena wrinkled her forehead. “What’s this about a field trip?”

  Shall’s voice, smooth and amused, broke in over the station’s public address system. “Attention, denizens of Glauketas station. Gravity Day is upon us. Ashok reminds everyone to stow everything securely, though I pointed out that everything is stowed securely, because this is a weightless environment, and anything that’s not secure tends to drift around, but at any rate – consider yourselves reminded. Please orient yourselves in relation to the agreed-upon definition of ‘down’ and prepare to feel the weight of the world again.”

  Callie and Elena drifted apart, but held hands. They were just a few centimeters above the consensus definition of the floor. “Bend your knees a little, darlin’,” Callie said. “To take the impact better.”

  “If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that…”

  Shall went on, “We’re only going to half a G, but we’re relying on barely understood alien technology, so be prepared in case–”

  “GRAVITY DAY!” Ashok broke in. “Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five! Four! Drumrollllllllll! Zero!”

  Artificial gravity came on, but not from the expected direction. The new “down” wasn’t below their feet, but behind their backs; the wall by Callie’s hammock became the floor, and they fell a few meters, Elena shouting in alarm and Callie cursing.

  They landed on a heap of blankets, but the impact was still jarring enough to knock Callie’s breath out. She sat up, groaning and gasping. “Are you OK?”

  “Feel like I got kicked in the back,” Elena said. “Oof.”

  The furniture they’d carefully bolted to the “floor” in preparation for this day listed and creaked and threatened to pull loose from their moorings, including a large dresser that was perfectly poised to fall from the opposite wall – now the ceiling – and squash them. One drawer, not fully closed, worked its way loose and flew across the room, and Callie had to roll over on top of Elena to avoid getting hit. Callie’s underwear and socks spilled out of the drawer as it fell, and showered down around them.

  “I do like seeing your clothes all over the floor,” Elena said. “And I don’t recall ever complaining about you being on top of me. But there are some drawbacks…”

  Callie turned her head and shouted, “Ashok!”

  “Oops,” he said. “Sorry about that, everybody. Axiom tech is really weird in terms of spatial orientations. I think they operate in more dimensions than we do sometimes. Let me twist this value through a perpendicular… is everybody ready to go again?”

  “No!” Callie shouted. “Not really!”

  “Gravity Day!” Ashok crowed.

  The room tilted. Ashok didn’t turn off the artificial field, but just changed its orientation, and as a result, the room turned around them. It was like being inside a very roomy barrel, and rolling down a hill, or climbing into an old tumble-dryer. They clung to each other, Elena laughing uncontrollably, as they rolled up the wall in an avalanche of underwear, slid across what was supposed to be the ceiling, slid down the other wall (narrowly missing the dresser, and it was a good thing the door was shut or they’d have fallen into the corridor), and finally thumped onto the originally intended floor. Callie wondered if they’d just keep spinning, rolling around the room, but
the motion ceased.

  Elena lifted her head and looked at Callie, a pair of underwear stuck to her ponytail. “I don’t know how that was for you,” she said. “But for me, the earth moved.”

  “I’d give myself a B-plus.” Ashok spun around in a swivel chair in the big central room the pirates had used as a meeting hall. The space was vast and square, topped by a “dome” – the concave ceiling was covered in screens that looked like windows, simulating a view of the stars around them at the moment, but capable of displaying anything Callie wanted them to. The pirates had stolen all sorts of odds and ends over the years, including shipments bound for colony worlds, and had storerooms full of things that were useless in a weightless environment: sofas, footstools, tables, stand lamps, desks, mattresses. Callie had furnished this room with desks and a long conference table and chairs, suitable for an all-hands meeting. “I know that thing where the wall was the floor for a minute wasn’t ideal, but I didn’t accidentally turn us inside out or spawn a singularity or anything.”

  The whole crew of the White Raven was present, along with the survivors from the Anjou. Drake and Janice were there, in their egg-shaped mobility device, the privacy screen drawn down and presenting a curved mirrored surface; they weren’t entirely comfortable around the relative strangers from the Anjou. They’d been in a terrible spaceship accident years before, their shattered and almost lifeless bodies plucked from the wreckage by a tribe of passing Liars who used advanced medical technology to put them back together again. Unfortunately, those particular Liars seemed unfamiliar with human biology, and had apparently thought Drake and Janice were a single organism; the pilot and navigator retained their individual minds and personalities, but shared a transformed body that now bore only a passing resemblance to the humans they’d once been. Stephen sat in an executive armchair, hands laced over his ample belly, eyes sleepy and bored. He’d been depressed lately – he was always doleful, but now he was dour – and Callie was worried about him.

  “It is nice to have gravity, Ashok,” Elena said from her chair beside Callie at the conference table. “And I wasn’t too badly injured.”

  “It was like being inside a rock polisher,” Ibn grumbled.

  “I still don’t understand it.” Uzoma leaned over the table, fingers interlaced, scowling at Ashok. “How does the artificial gravity work? What happens if you stick your head outside the gravity field, but your body remains inside it? Why doesn’t the White Raven, docked just outside, crash into the asteroid, since the asteroid has gravity fully half that of the Earth now?”

  Ashok shrugged. “I’m not a theoretical physicist. I’m an engineer. I’m more about the hows than the whys, and since it works, I’m OK with not understanding why it works yet. Lantern and the rest of the Free don’t understand it either.” The Free was the name many Liars used for themselves, but almost never mentioned to outsiders. “They just know how to mess around with the variables – same as the bridges, and the short-range teleporting, and the wormhole generator on the Raven. The gravity field doesn’t end abruptly, though, so don’t worry about weird effects if you stick your nose outside. The artificial gravity kinda fades out in a gradient, so you’ll feel yourself getting lighter as you get closer to the edges, and by the time you hit an airlock, you’ll be weightless again. That same effect should keep ships and space trash from smashing into us. Glauketas has a gravitational field now, but only in a small, defined area. The gravity is pretty consistently half a G in all the living areas though. I can adjust that until we find a sweet spot.”

  Callie said, “You did good, Ashok. I wish you’d tested it a little more before activation, but I knew what I was getting into when I gave you permission to try this experiment. It’ll be nice to do some weight training again.”

  “I’m looking forward to boiling pasta in an open pot,” Stephen rumbled.

  “Smelling coffee before I take a drink of it? Stirring it with a spoon?” Robin whistled. “That’s civilization.”

  “Gravity sucks,” Janice said. “We’ll be going back to the Raven soon. Having weight again hurts.”

  “Are you having issues with pain?” Stephen flipped into ship’s doctor mode instantly.

  “Not really,” Drake said. “No more than usual, considering the gravity. The gel padding inside the chair is still working well to support those things that need support. We’ve just had the pleasure of floating blissfully weightless for a while, and we got spoiled.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Janice’s voice was as dry as the surface of Mercury. “That’s us. A couple of conjoined hedonists, drowning in pleasure.”

  “Thanks for coming down,” Callie said. “I’ll cut you loose soon, and you might even get to do a little flying before long. I called this meeting not just so we could all applaud for Ashok–”

  “Nobody actually applauded,” he muttered.

  “–but because we have some decisions to make.”

  “What decisions?” Uzoma said.

  “Just little things,” Callie said. “Like how you want to spend the rest of your lives. I’m going to Ganymede, to get some drugs for Sebastien and to chase down a lead on Axiom activity in another system… which means there’s a chance for some of you to get off this ride.”

  Chapter 4

  Elena invited Uzoma to her cabin after the meeting; she hardly ever used the room, since she slept with Callie most of the time, but it was good to have a place to keep her stuff, such as it was, and to immerse herself in educational simulations to catch up on the past few centuries.

  The two of them sat side by side on the low bunk, the only furniture in the room. “I’m going to miss you,” Elena said. “I’ll miss Ibn and Robin, too, of course, but – well. All the work you and I have done on Sebastien together… it’s made me feel really close to you.”

  Uzoma nodded. They were never a physically demonstrative person, but they reached out a hand and briefly patted Elena’s own. “I did not decide to leave this fellowship lightly,” Uzoma said. “What the Axiom implants did to my brain… it gives me some insights into their conceptual architecture. The way they see the world, and organize information. That understanding might be valuable to you.” They paused. “I also hold a personal grudge against them, and celebrate your attempts to bring about their downfall. That said… I have done all I can for Sebastien. My knowledge of physics and mathematics and starship travel are of no particular value in this place and time – Shall exceeds all my capabilities in the theoretical areas, and I am hopelessly behind the times in terms of the practical ones. I do not enjoy being ignorant.”

  Elena nodded. Uzoma wasn’t a warrior – they fought with their brain. “The crew has contacts that can help you catch up on education. Maybe get you into a college somewhere. Whatever you want.”

  “Yes. I have already discussed some options with Callie. She said, quote, ‘I know people who donate so much money to the Jovian Imperative University system that there are buildings named after them on every campus,’ end quote. We also discussed the possibility that I might rejoin the mission against the Axiom, once I feel I have more to contribute.”

  Elena relaxed at that. The idea of losing Uzoma again forever was heartbreaking, but if she thought of it as a brief separation instead, it was easier.

  Uzoma went on. “I have talked with Lantern about the possibility of studying with her, too. The Axiom interest me. I think it would be fruitful to split my time between conventional education and delving into the databases of the truth-tellers.” They narrowed their eyes, expression becoming fierce. “I cannot contribute enough to the fight with my current capabilities. I intend to change that.”

  Elena said, “That sounds wonderful. If you were into hugs, I would hug you right now.”

  “Consider me hugged in my metaphorical but not literal heart,” Uzoma said.

  Stephen stepped from the bright sunlight of the dusty street into the cool dimness of the restaurant. The walls were hung with tapestries in geometric designs, and the seatin
g was mostly low tables with cushions scattered around them. That kind of layout was a recipe for back spasms in reality, but here in the Hypnos, nothing ever hurt too much. Stephen strolled around the empty tables, enjoying the scents in the air: hints of coriander and lamb, strong coffee, cinnamon. Much better than the way Glauketas smelled.

  Ibn sat cross-legged on a cushion, a cup of tea on the dark wood table before him. Stephen eased himself down across from him. “I’ll be sorry to see you go. I’ve enjoyed our talks.”

  Ibn opened one eye and regarded him gravely. “I will be glad to free myself from your endless blasphemies.” Then he grinned. Ibn’s smiles were rare and all the more lovely for that. “I will miss you, too, doctor. If I must be trapped, as Robin says, in a hollow rock full of farts, at least I had the pleasure of discussing philosophy during my confinement. I did have one query, though, before I go. Or perhaps two.”

  Stephen reached out for a cup, and it was there, full of spicy dark hot chocolate, because to hell with tea. “What’s that?”

  “Your religion believes that all thinking beings collectively make up the mind of God, correct?”

  Stephen hmmmed. “My first teacher in the Church of the Ecstatic Divine, which is more a fellowship than a religion to my way of thinking, told me that all our minds were neurons in the mind of God. That we are all connected, in ways subtle and overt, and that we add up to something greater than ourselves, as proven by all the great works humans and Liars have created by working together. Some people used to believe our home world, Earth, was a single organism, and that all the living things on it were parts of that organism, just as our bodies are made up of thousands upon thousands of individual living cells, not to mention all those helpful microorganisms that dwell within us.” Stephen took a sip. “Some of my people literally believe what you said – that, together, we are God, and that we cannot know the whole of God any more than a red blood cell in my body can comprehend the whole of me. But, sometimes, we can get a glimpse of the overarching grandeur, and be awed, and feel as if what we do matters – that our contributions are a small part of that whole. Some of us think of the whole ‘neurons in the brain of God’ idea more as a metaphor about how we’re all part of this great ongoing experiment called ‘living together in the universe.’”